Archive for September, 2008
What Has Happened to Alpharetta’s City Center? Project Still Spinning Its Wheels
categories: Alpharetta Real Estate, Miscellaneous
ALPHARETTA - Why isn’t the graphic for this post a picture of Alpharetta’s new City Center stretching toward the sky? Because it doesn’t exist. That’s why. Ghosts don’t show up on film or digital sensors.
I wrote almost two years ago about Alpharetta’s plans to redevelop "downtown" Alpharetta and build a new City Hall. To date, not an inch of dirt has been turned due to legal battles over public financing methods and hold out landowners. This article in The Beacon provides and updated overview of the situation:
Holding Out Hope: Alpharetta’s Quest For A New City Hall - beaconcast.com .
What I don’t get is whether Bob Miller, whose property is shown at left, is saint or villain. The first paragraphs of the article states: "[Miller] has been willing to part with [his property] as a way to contribute to the city’s vision. This makes Miller sound pretty generous.
Later, however, the Milton Square Partnership is identified as the group of property owners who have held out, not willing to sell to enable a larger vision of the project to move forward. And here is the point: Miller is part of the Milton Square Partnership, along with Dockery’s Cafe (shown at right).
So is Miller part of the problem or part of the solution?
Alpharetta assistant city administrator, James Drinkard, is also quoted as saying they won’t use eminent domain to take the land. In fact, the City of Alpharetta has a resolution that says it is not their policy to use eminent domain. "That’s just not the way we do business," says Drinkard.
Why not? Eminent domain exists for a reason. That is, there are often public benefits of projects that outweigh individual benefits. It is not like the private landowners are uncompensated for their land. They are paid a market price.
Yes, the project can be built without the adjoining Milton Square Partnership’s land. Despite what City Councilman David Belle Isle says, in my opinion, it won’t be as good as it could be. You’ll wind up with inconsistent development in downtown. The brand new City Center will be directly next door to Dockery’s Cafe, which is a typical, half-empty, strip center and Miller’s old, white clapboard house.
Miller was quoted in the article as saying, “If we could get all this together and redevelop [the land] for a city center it would be a wonderful thing for Alpharetta.”
So what about it Mr. Miller?
Posted by Kevin Warmath | Currently 2 Comments »
Red School Grabs the Blue | Milton High School Honored as National Blue Ribbon School for 2008
categories: Milton Real Estate, Schools
MILTON - While the Milton Eagles football team was running left, right and up the middle on the Wheeler Wildcats last Friday night, the PA Announcer came on and made a barely audible announcement that Milton High School had been awarded a 2008 National Blue Ribbon for excellence last week.
Being named a national Blue Ribbon school is an accomplishment even more impressive that the Eagle running game that night. Milton wins again, and this time in the classroom.
The blue ribbon is awarded each year to schools that are either in the top 10% on state assessments or have shown dramatic improvement while having an enrollment comprised of 40% of students coming from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Milton was awarded based on its performance on state assessments, but, I can hear you say, there are plenty of other schools in North Fulton, both secondary and primary schools, that ware in the top ten in state achievement. Why weren’t they awarded, too?
To be selected, a school has to do a self-evaluation and submit an application to the U.S. Department of Education. The applications are evaluated and select schools are singled out for on-site visits by education experts who make award recommends to the Secretary of Education. A school has to have been in existence for five years and have not received the award within the previous five years.
I have to assume that every school in the North Fulton area, including private schools, submits an application each year. And while the award is somewhat of a subjective evaluation, it is certainly well earned. Since 1982, when the program began, less than 4% of schools nationwide have been recipients. So, CONGRATULATIONS MILTON. It is fantastic to be living in a community with a high school that has a blue ribbon as well as a running game.
The principal of Milton, Ron Tesch, made what I’m sure he thought was a somewhat lighthearted comment: “To steal from the real estate motto, ‘location, location, location’ – at Milton, it’s ‘academics, academics, academics.’" Well, not so fast Mr. Tesch. While I agree that the faculty and staff certainly play an important role in attaining high achievement levels and creating a culture of excellence, the number one predictor of school performance is, indeed, location.
Said another way: Areas with higher per household income, higher parental educational levels and more intact nuclear families have consistently been shown to have higher performing schools. So please don’t hear me slighting the achievements of Milton High School, but let it be said that the area’s reflection on Milton is as great or greater than Milton’s reflection on the area. The blue ribbon is something that we can and should all be proud of because it acknowledges the standards of the entire school district.
Milton was the only High School in Georgia to receive a National Blue Ribbon for 2008. Other North Fulton schools have received the award in previous years. Those high-caliber schools include:
Blue Ribbon Schools in North Fulton
| School | City | Status | Year | Search |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Milton High School | Milton | Public | 2008 | Search for Homes in Milton High School District |
| River Trail Middle School | Johns Creek | Public | 2007 | Search for Homes in River Trail School District |
| High Meadows School | Roswell | Private | 2004 | Contact me for help searching for homes in private school districts. |
| Mountain Park Elementary | Roswell | Public | 2003 | Search for Homes in Mountain Park School District |
| Chattahoochee High School | Alpharetta | Public | 1999 | Search for Homes in Chattahoochee High School District |
| Dolvin Elementary | Johns Creek | Public | 1989 | Search for Homes in Dolvin School District |
| Crabapple Middle School | Roswell | Public | 1987 | Search for Homes in Crabapple Middle School District |
Posted by Kevin Warmath | Currently 1 Comment »
Alpharetta High Schools Still Among the Best in Georgia | Five North Fulton Schools in Georgia Top Ten
categories: Schools
The SAT test scores for 2008 have been released by the College Board. As a group, the six North Fulton High Schools are still collectively the best in the Georgia.
Not much has changed on the state level either. Of the top fifteen high schools, only one was not in the top fifteen a year ago. All that has really happened is a bit of a reshuffling at the top. The high achieving schools are still high achieving and the low achieving, well … I wish they were doing better.
We all should know by now that ranking states by SAT scores in an invalid comparison , but that won’t stop analysts from noting that Georgia’s average score declined by six points from last year and the state slipped another spot to #47 in the country.
However, if you look at North Fulton high schools alone, the scores of those six schools when up on average three points and if you compare just North Fulton schools to the national average, we’d be somewhere around twentieth.
But again, all the comparisons are meaningless ; we know that. But still, it is human nature to want to keep score. The intra-state scores are NOT meaningless, though. They give us a clear picture of how high schools compare within Georgia. Below is a chart showing the top fifteen high schools within Georgia for 2008. If you would like to see a complete list of high school SAT scores since 2005, go here.
To search for homes in any of these school districts you can, go here .
Top Fifteen High Schools 2008
| District / County Name | School Name | 2008 | # of Test Takers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Richmond | Davidson Magnet School | 1733 | 89 |
| Cobb | Walton High School | 1712 | 629 |
| Fulton | Northview High School | 1691 | 584 |
| Fulton | Roswell High School | 1677 | 500 |
| Dekalb | Chamblee High School | 1667 | 250 |
| Fulton | Chattahoochee High School | 1667 | 482 |
| Fulton | Milton High School | 1667 | 438 |
| Fulton | Alpharetta High School | 1658 | 417 |
| Muscogee | Columbus High School | 1656 | 319 |
| Cobb | Pope High School | 1646 | 465 |
| Fayette | Mcintosh High School | 1639 | 337 |
| Gwinnett | Brookwood High School | 1638 | 613 |
| Columbia | Lakeside High School | 1637 | 215 |
| Cobb | Lassiter High School | 1635 | 417 |
| Fulton | Centennial High School | 1633 | 356 |
Posted by Kevin Warmath | Currently No Comments »
Where Are the Most Foreclosures in North Atlanta?
categories: Buyers, Foreclosures
NORTH ATLANTA - I was poking around in the MLS last night and started to do searches for foreclosures by county. Then I wondered where the most foreclosures are currently located. I’d love to give you a "heat map" of foreclosures in North Atlanta - and I’m working on a solution to do just that - but for now what I can give you is a breakdown of foreclosures by county.
Before you read on, which North Atlanta county do you think has the most number of foreclosures? Keep in mind that this statistic is completely irrelevant because it is not relative to anything, not county size, population, mean county income, county job growth or unemployment. It is just a number…still, kind of interesting.
So, what’s it going to be? Cobb, Cherokee, Forsyth, Gwinnett or Fulton?
Foreclosures by County
| County | Number of Foreclosures |
|---|---|
| Cobb | 503 |
| Cherokee | 187 |
| Forsyth | 113 |
| Fulton | 1385 |
| North Fulton | 78 |
| Gwinnett | 889 |
Technically, the answer is Fulton, as you probably guessed. However, Fulton County is a very long skinny county with the bulk of the county land mass actually being south of Atlanta. If you consider only North Fulton in this exercise, that is, the area in Fulton County north of the Chattahoochee River, then Gwinnett County is the clear leader in number of foreclosures in North Atlanta.
Before I let you go, I thought that I’d just take a bit more granular look at where the foreclosures are in North Atlanta. Counties are very big and very diverse from one end to the other. Therefore, I looked at the individual MLS areas inside each county. You’ll need this map to cross-reference with,
North Atlanta MLS Areas (197.1 KiB, 146 hits)
Foreclosures by MLS Area
| County | MLS Area | Number of Foreclosures |
|---|---|---|
| Cherokee | 111 | 26 |
| Cherokee | 112 | 91 |
| Cherokee | 113 | 64 |
| Cherokee | 114 | 5 |
| Forsyth | 221 | 69 |
| Forsyth | 222 | 23 |
| Forsyth | 223 | 22 |
| N.Fulton | 13 | 40 |
| N.Fulton | 14 | 38 |
| E.Cobb | 81 | 30 |
| E.Cobb | 82 | 23 |
| E.Cobb | 83 | 19 |
| W.Cobb | 72 | 170 |
| W.Cobb | 73 | 130 |
| W.Cobb | 74 | 69 |
| W.Cobb | 75 | 61 |
| Gwinnett | 61 | 40 |
| Gwinnett | 62 | 142 |
| Gwinnett | 63 | 142 |
| Gwinnett | 64 | 218 |
With the existing search tools available for the Atlanta market, it is not possible to search online for just these foreclosures in the MLS. However, I’m working on a solution to meet that need…I just need a little more time to get it up and running. In the meantime, if you would like me to email you the foreclosure homes in any of these MLS areas, please just email me.
Posted by Kevin Warmath | Currently No Comments »
Site for New Milton-area High School Moved | Planned to Open 2012
categories: Schools
MILTON - Have you ever wanted a do over, a mulligan, a take back? Well, the Fulton County Board of Education just got a do over and this time they got it right.
These days, all the news about the real estate industry is bad, but in the bad news the BOE found some good. Developers who were not willing to sell land last year are now excited at the opportunity to dump some carrying costs. To the end, on Friday Chatham Homes dumped its new home development at the corner of Bethany and Cogburn Roads and the school board picked it up as the site for the new high school.
No word yet on what they paid for the 64-acre tract, but the location makes SOOOOO much more sense than the proposed Freemanville Road site. For one, the Cogburn-Bethany site has sewer access. Secondly, it has proximity to Highway 9, Windward Parkway and GA-400. And third, it is in an area that is already much more developed than "central Milton"; for instance, the Publix on Highway 9 is adjacent to the property.
The new school isn’t scheduled to open until 2012, but residents of Milton must be pleased as punch that a new site has been obtained.
Middle School Still Planed for Freemanville Road
Now that doesn’t mean that the land on Freemanville Road will go undeveloped. The Board of Education still owns that property. However, it was interesting to note that the BOE admitted that that site was not suitable for both a middle and a high school, as they had originally intended. With both schools having to be on septic and the lay of the land, there just wasnt’ enough acreage for two schools after they did detailed site plans. One or both schools would have had to have been significanly modified, and the school board like to build pre-designed and testing models.
With the new high school now going on Cogburn Road, expect the Freemanville Road site to be a middle school only.
That is probably an acceptable land use for the location, however, I’d just like to throw out that the corner of Freemanville and Birmingham Roads might be even better. It also is a development project that has been gathering weeds for two plus years now. It is flat and has access to two major roads, by Milton standards, and is adjacent to Birmingham Crossroads, which is the only commercial activity in the area.
The addition of a middle school in that area could help solidify that are as a "micro economy" inside Milton, similar to Crabapple, especially with the ultimate development of the Milton Park just a little further west.
Name The New High School
Congratulations and thanks to the BOE for finding a better site for the future High School. I wonder now what it will be called. The other new high school east of GA-400, which is scheduled to open next Fall, already snagged the creative name North Fulton High School. With that name taken, what would you call the new school? Comments welcome. I’m better at mascots. What about The Chiggers? Or better yet, The Copperheads: Fierce, local and non-politically offensive unless you are a snake.
Posted by Kevin Warmath | Currently No Comments »
Real Estate Appraisals Are a BIG FAT JOKE - and Everyone Knows It
categories: Alpharetta Real Estate, Buyers
ALPHARETTA - Today’s post may be more of a vent than anything else. Real estate appraisals are a joke. If you agree or already know that, you can stop reading now. Vent released. Otherwise…
It is said that wherever there is bad behavior there is an enabler; for fraudulent real estate investing the enabler is the appraiser. Its no different than Enron’s top accountant, Richard Causey , enabling Ken Lay and Jeffrey Skilling. The guy cooking the books has got to be on board.
The appraisal of your house has nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with its actual market value: what someone will pay to for it in an arm’s length transaction.
How Appraisals Work
Technically a real estate appraisal is the practice of developing an opinion of value for the property. It is done by a professional, licensed appraiser who must follow very specific "guidelines" when comparing properties. In order for fraud to occur, an appraiser usually has to state that a property is worth more than it probably is.
But there is a ton of gray area in appraisals usually around which properties can be used as "comparable sales." Since the market has been declining so quickly recently, guidelines stipulate that a comparable sale cannot be older than 6 months. Well, there are plenty of neighborhoods in Alpharetta where there have not been one, let alone three, sales in the last six months.
When comparable sales in the neighborhood don’t exist, the appraiser is allowed to "go outside the neighborhood" to find comparables. Well, once you go outside the neighborhood it is pretty easy to find a comparable if you want to find one, and there in lies the professional judgment - and ultimately reputation - of the appraiser.
Stuck Between a Rock and a Hard Place
Appraisers are people, though, and therefore subject to opposing interests.
Technically they are working for the lender. They don’t want to bite the hand that feeds them by appraising something too high and then have the loan default and the lender stop sending them business.
They also don’t want to screw up the deal either, because then the mortgage broker - who probably ordered the appraisal and only gets paid if the deal closes - will stop sending them business. It is kind of a "damned if you do and damned if you don’t" situation the appraisers are in.
So here is what happens: The house appraises for $1,000 more than the contracted price. Everyone is happy. Deal goes through. The appraiser protected her butt with the lowest possible "passing value." Problem is that it is no where near a good estimate of value. It is kind of like a "white lie." No one got hurt.
Case in Point
I have clients who just put a house under contract for $301,100. It was a foreclosure that had listed at $349,000 in July. Then it was reduced to $329,000; then to $299,900 a few weeks later.
We paid a tad more than list price because it became a multiple offer situation. The house appraised for $301,500. It is worth more than that, considerably more.
Would it have appraised for $349,500 in July? Give me a break.
Some people would argue that the house is worth exactly $301,100, particularly since there were three separate parties willing to pay basically that same amount - how can I argue that it is worth more?
The answer is that we are trying to get a third party, market-sales-based, value to compare this sale to in order to validate where it is a fair price against which to lend. You can’t compare something to itself to validate that it is itself. Value is relative so there has to be a comparison to something else.
I think that if we really wanted a truer estimate of value, that we wouldn’t tell the appraiser what the contracted price was and just see what they come up with. Now that would be fun. Why give them the answer before they take the test? Because people in the real estate industry stand to make money based on whether the transaction closes, that’s why.
Don’t Sweat it, Buyers
Buyers tend to wig out a little when the appraisal comes back, so what I tell them is that it is meaningless and I tell them in advance that it is going to come in at $1000 more than the purchase price and to not get worked up about it. That is just the way the system works.
But now, since we all know that it is a "system" and not a legitimate estimate of value, can everyone please stop advertising that their property appraised last year for some ungodly amount more than you are asking for it today, so therefore it is a bargain today. Appraisals are a BIG FAT JOKE - and everyone knows it, including your prospective buyers.
Posted by Kevin Warmath | Currently 8 Comments »
Has Echelon Found Its Prince? | Southeastern Capital Partners Poised to Ride to the Rescue
categories: Alpharetta Real Estate, Cherokee County, Foreclosures, Golf Communities, Luxury Homes, New Construction
The rumor mill has been working and this time it has spit out that Echelon could have a suitor. No, not "The Donald" as I had teased here in the Spring. The Donald must have spent his money bailing out Jim McMahon.
This time, it is rumored that Southeast Capital Partners has Echelon under contract and is in a 60-day due diligence period that is about to expire. Southeast Capital would be buying out The Melrose Company , which by all accounts has triple bogeyed Echelon. The question remains if Southeast Capital does complete the purchase if they can turn it around, as their expertise is mostly in apartment and multi-family development in Atlanta. Echelon would be their first luxury home, golf course community development that I’m aware of.
I’ve often maintained that Echelon has the potential to be some of the most top-notch luxury living in the Alpharetta area mainly for two reasons: one is the lot size. You can go to The Manor Golf and Country Club , which is Echelon’s nearest competition, and purchase just as beautiful of a home. However, for better or worse, The Manor has a private sewer system which allows them to have smaller lots and higher density development. The Manor is not worse, just different; but that is one reason I think Echelon is unique.
The other thing that Echelon has going for it is the golf course. The Rees Jones designed course is a fantastic test of golf, better than just about everything around here except Hawk’s Ridge. If I could play it every day, I would.
There is a third advantage that the market may provide Echelon, kind of like a back handed compliment. Because of the real estate market’s decline and lenders’ unwillingness to make speculative home building loans, future home building in Echelon will very likely be custom construction. [If you are interested in custom building in Alpharetta, CLICK HERE .]
Custom construction will create an inventory of homes in Echelon that will offer more amenities, better finishes and more ultimate value than a neighborhood that was built out with "builders homes." Don’t get me wrong, the spec homes that builders produce are no where near "bad," it’s just that they sometimes lack imagination and extra touches that you’d put in a strictly custom home. More custom equals more better!
What Echelon hasn’t had is quality development. Unlike The Manor, which built a temporary club house with indoor pool, the clubhouse at Echelon is not built. Last year they slapped in a couple of tennis courts and there is still no pool.
Having amenities in place, per se, are not going to all of a sudden turn around Echelon’s fortunes, but they will be a sign to people looking to build and live there that there is forward momentum and a positive future. Right now prospective buyers are just plain scared because they don’t know what the future holds. I can look at old listings in Echelon and see where agents were promoting that the swim tennis would be OPEN, not just under construction, by Spring 2007. Ha!
The marketing and sales aspects have fallen short, too, as The Manor has outsold Echelon by a long margin and the marketing plan to affiliate Echelon with The Georgia Tech Club, seems to have backfired.
So here sits Echelon: great golf course (which thank goodness they have continued to maintain at high standards) and tons of potential locked in the downward spiral of a bad housing market and developer mis-steps. Money is tight exactly when money is needed, the same problem that Vickery faces not too far down the road in S. Forsyth County, in which, by the way, Cousins Property is rumored to be interested.
Just as Cousins could be Vickery’s knight with deep pockets, Southeast Capital could be Echelon’s knight.
In the mean time, there are some deep discounts to be had at Echelon. For one, Storey Residential has an awesome house on the first fairway for $2.3 million. This house is discounted $400,000 from its original list price of $2.7 million in June, 2007. The home has great attention to detail and a killer finished basement…you’d never have to go upstairs is you lived there.
There are nine other homes for sale in Echelon, including the super-jumbo red brick house on the first tee for $4.15 million. What’s the over under on when it will sell? It has been 14+ months so far; they started at $4.6 million.
The rest of the current offerings include three foreclosures and one corporate-owned property.
The opportunities are there and the sale of Echelon to Southeast Capital, if it goes through, will hopefully signal a change of direction for this development if for no other reason that golf’s sake. A great golf course is a terrible thing to waste.
Posted by Kevin Warmath | Currently No Comments »
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